Germany: Duisburg police arrest terror suspect

From DW. According the the Brussels Times a second, apparently unrelated arrest was also made in Anderlecht early this morning. Both plots were Gaza related. 

First: Police in the western German city of Duisburg on Tuesday arrested a man who was allegedly planning a terror attack, multiple German media outlets reported.

The man was supposedly planning to attack a pro-Israel demonstration with a truck to which he had access,

The media reports said the suspect, Tarik S. had previously been sentenced to five years imprisonment by the Higher Regional Court in Düsseldorf in 2017 for membership of the terrorist organization “Islamic State.”

Essen police said on their website on Tuesday evening that they had received “indications of a possible attack scenario.” The tipoff was said to have come from a foreign security service.

It appeared that the 29-year-old had searched online for pro-Israel events and jihadi.

The alert was deemed sufficiently serious and Tarik S. was arrested under the Risk Prevention Act. Police feared that the current war between Israel and Hamas could motivate this man, known as an Islamist, to commit an attack, according to the magazine’s information.  Tarik S., a German-Egyptian, had traveled to Syria via Turkey at the end of 2013, to join the Islamic State (ISIS), Der Spiegel reported.

Second: A 23-year-old Palestinian man who reportedly told the Federal Agency for the reception of asylum seekers (Fedasil) that he intends to “die as a martyr by blowing himself up” has now been arrested, La Dernière Heure reports. The man was arrested in a hotel in the municipality of Anderlecht shortly before 12:30 on Wednesday.

He had applied for asylum in Belgium on 26 September and was due to apply again the following day. However, it transpired that the man did not go to the Fedasil offices on Tuesday and reportedly expressed his desire to die a martyr’s death, mentioning that he had learned that his entire family had died in Gaza, Het Laatste Nieuws reported on Tuesday. Following this statement, the young Palestinian was immediately reported nationwide, triggering a manhunt by all the country’s police units. The Brussels Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that it had been informed of the incident, but said “no comment will be made.”

Meanwhile, thirdly, in Paris: Two men have been detained in Paris for suspected involvement in the terror attack in Brussels last week, AFP reports. The men are alleged by French prosecutors to have participated in a “criminal terrorist conspiracy” together with Abdeslam Lassoued, the 45-year-old Tunisian national and ISIS-sympathiser who shot and killed two Swedish citizens on Monday 16 October.

French prosecutors added that they are “continuing to clarify [the suspects’] ties” to Lassoued. Like Lassoued, both men are reported to be middle-aged Tunisian nationals. Two other men suspected of involvement in the attack were also detained by the French authorities last week but were subsequently released.

Nothing more has been reported about the attack that took place somewhere in the UK. Whether it was the incident I think it might be, or another one remains something the public isn’t allowed to know.